


Five Times Malcolm Trusted Dani (and One Time She Trusted Him)

by ceterisparibus



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, At least he's an idiot, Exhaustion, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Kidnapping, Malcolm Bright Gets a Hug, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Malcolm Bright is a Good Brother, Night Terrors, Whump, as usual, bit of legal stuff bc I can't help it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25550533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceterisparibus/pseuds/ceterisparibus
Summary: What it says on the tin. :)
Relationships: Malcolm Bright/Dani Powell
Comments: 33
Kudos: 79





	1. Ainsley

Ainsley’s blue eyes were the only part of her not spattered in blood. Malcolm’s hand trembled as he lowered the phone, Martin’s breathless, triumphant voice still ringing in his ear.

_My girl!_

_No._ The thought rose up fiercely from somewhere deep in Malcolm. _She’s not yours. I won’t let that happen._

He took a step towards his sister.

She flinched away. “Malcolm—Malcolm, what—”

“Shh,” he tried to say. “Shh, it’s okay.”

Her eyes flickered down to the body sprawled between them, the pool of blood soaking into the carpet. “What—what—”

“It’s okay.” He stepped over the body. Her chest was heaving; she was on the verge of a panic attack. She might collapse in a ball on the floor, but she also might run, and he couldn’t let that happen, either. “Ainsley, listen to me. I need you to listen to me, okay? We—”

“I—” She broke off, clapping her hands to her mouth. She sucked in a breath. And her weight shifted onto her left leg, left knee bending slightly, a spring about to release.

“Ainsley, no!” Malcolm dove at her, caught her just as she started to run, wrapping his arms around her. She had too much forward motion and he was more interested in grabbing her than staying upright; they went down in a tangled heap less than four feet away from Endicott’s corpse.

Ainsley shook in his arms—but she wasn’t crying. In a very distant part of his mind, Malcolm found that terrifying.

But he had more important things to worry about right now. Like the fact that their home was the crime scene of a murder, one which, for once, Malcolm did not want to profile.

“Shh, shh.” He tucked Ainsley’s head under his chin, holding her tight to his chest, trying to give her a steadier rhythm with which to breathe. Now that she couldn’t run, her body apparently preferred to hyperventilate. “Ainsley, breathe with me. It’s okay, just breathe, c’mon, in…out… _c’mon_ …”

She gasped for breath. “Malcolm, I—I killed—I—”

 _He’s not a killer,_ she had said so calmly over the clamor of the prison.

 _He’s a Whitly,_ Martin had returned so matter-of-factly.

Well, Ainsley was a Whitly, too.

Malcolm wasn’t sure how long they sat there, huddled together. She couldn’t manage more than a few stammering words before she’d spiral into incoherence, and he had nothing to say in return except empty platitudes.

It _wasn’t_ okay, it would never be okay again.

Eventually, Ainsley’s breathing became something close to normal, but that only lasted a few seconds before the sobbing started in earnest. She hunched over, making awful sounds, tears streaming down her face and leaving watery trails of blood on her skin.

Malcolm wiped it all away with his sleeve and tried to think.

At some point, he had unconsciously tucked his emotions away, locked them in a box like the one from the basement and shoved it into some dark recess in his mind. He now thought it best to leave it there for the foreseeable future.

He didn’t need a heart for this. He needed a mind.

First things first. He needed an optimization equation. There were several outcomes to balance: the best-case (possible) scenario for Ainsley in the short term, the best-case (possible) scenario for Ainsley in the long term, and the worst case scenarios both now and in the future. And he had to calculate the approximate probability of each.

The _actual_ best-case scenario for Ainsley, both now and in the future, would be to somehow erase what had happened. But he couldn’t wipe away a body like he could wipe away her tears.

So, short of that, limiting himself to the realm of the feasible, he could…what, mitigate the consequences for her? By…testifying about how Endicott threatened her? Paint Endicott as the real villain? Would that be enough to save her?

He could…hide evidence. Tidy up. Make the crime look less…insane. Make it look more like self-defense, less like an execution? Maybe?

He didn’t know. And the worst-case scenarios were too awful for Malcolm to afford to guess. He needed expertise. The nameless faces of Jessica’s attorneys flashed in his mind, but he didn’t want them.

He wanted Gil.

A lump rose in his throat—no, that was emotion. That was not helpful. Gil was not available right now; it was as simple as that.

He shifted under Ainsley’s shuddering weight, numb fingers drawing his phone from his pocket. He swiped at the screen until he found the contact he was looking for.

(To be fair. It might be his heart, not his mind, that wanted her here right now. He was possibly not as coldly logical in this moment as he wanted to be. But he was _trying_. And he needed help. And Ainsley couldn’t afford to wait until he was absolutely sure that he was making the most rational decision.)

“Hello?” Dani’s voice was an oasis in his ear.

He had the stupid, stupid urge to just ask her about her day. Ask her the most mundane question he could think of, just to hear her voice, just to keep from having to talk aloud about what happened. But that was emotion speaking, again. (He needed a better lock on that box.)

“Malcolm? Hello?” Dani’s voice was tinged with impatience. Fair enough; she’d been stressed ever since she arrested him, and now Gil was—

Malcolm cleared his throat. “Hey, are you…are you busy right now?”

Her answering silence was deafening.

Malcolm took a deep breath, planning on saying something calm and articulate, something that acknowledged everything she’d been going through while simultaneously assuring her that there was no one else whose expertise he’d trust more in light of current circumstances.

What came out was: “I need you.”

“…What?” She sounded more surprised than anything.

“There was, um…” In his lap, Ainsley began swallowing her sobs; soon she would have pulled herself together enough to ask questions, to be involved. He needed to secure Dani’s help before Ainsley could object. “A situation. At my mom’s place. Could you, um…could you maybe come by?”

Even as he said it, his heart pounded in his chest, so hard he was sure Ainsley could feel it. Maybe Dani would show up and lock cuffs around Ainsley’s wrists, just like she’d locked cuffs around his.

But if it had to happen (and…and maybe it did), he’d rather it be her than someone else.

~

Dani showed up in forty minutes. It gave Ainsley enough time to stop crying. Malcolm watched the hysteria drain from her face along with all other emotions; she sat passively on the couch, a statue, staring blankly straight ahead, not blinking even when Malcolm paced in front of her.

Malcolm was doing a lot of pacing. It was the only way to keep himself from trying to make the seen look less gruesome. He couldn’t meddle with this—if he did, and he got caught, it would only make things worse for Ainsley.

Besides, if he trusted Dani, he had to trust her all the way.

He’d informed Ainsley that she was coming. Ainsley’s eyes filled with a brief flash of fear, and then that, too, faded, leaving her with an empty stare.

“I don’t want her to come,” Ainsley said, monotone.

“I know,” Malcolm whispered. “But we need help, Ains.”

Ainsley didn’t have enough willpower left, after everything she’d been through, to fight him on this. (He’d been counting on it.)

There was a sound in a distant part of the house; Malcolm’s fingers twitched as he thought of the gun. If it wasn’t Dani—no, he was being crazy. Paranoid. Catastrophizing. It was just Dani, letting herself in.

Sure enough, the detective’s footsteps approached, light and fast, and then she burst through the doorway only to skid to a halt, eyes flying wide, one hand going to the gun on her hip. She didn’t draw it, not quite, but Malcolm froze anyway, hands raised.

“Dani,” he said quickly. “It’s not what it looks like.”

Her eyes were on Endicott’s body. “Did you do this?”

Because of course that was what it looked like. To her. “No, no. Dani, my sister…”

Dani’s eyes snapped to Ainsley, flickering over the blood splattered on her clothes, on the dead look in her eyes. “You hurt?”

Malcolm answered for her. “No, but…”

“Any other hostiles?” Now Dani was scanning the rest of the room.

What, _other?_ Malcolm couldn’t tell if she was referring to him, or to Ainsley, or to Endicott’s lifeless form. “Just us,” he said quietly. “Listen, Dani…” He took a step closer; she stiffened but still didn’t draw her gun, so he took another step, and another, until he was close enough to whisper: “He’s the one who killed Eve. He framed me on purpose. He…he ordered the attack on Gil. And, Dani, he…” He lowered his voice even more. “He threatened my sister. I don’t think she thought she had a choice.”

“She did this?” Dani breathed, and in the middle of all the shock and horror, Malcolm thought he might’ve maybe detected the tiniest hint of relief in her voice.

A relief mirrored by a sick feeling in his own gut, one he kept trying to shove into the box in his mind. How dare he be grateful that Ainsley used the knife so he didn’t have to. He wet his lips. “I called you here because I didn’t know what else to do.”

“What do you want _me_ to do, Bright?” Dani hissed, steely resolve settling over her like a second skin. This wasn’t Dani, this was Detective Powell.

Malcolm hesitated. Waited until he knew exactly what to say and how to say it. “Ainsley’s not a killer,” he said at last. “She was…panicking. I’ve never seen her like that. And Endicott, he was threatening us both.”

“Physically?” Dani cut in.

He hesitated again. “…No. But that’s just it, he doesn’t _have_ to threaten anyone physically. He gets other people to do his dirty work. Like his coworker who attacked Gil.”

The hardness of Dani’s face cracked a little. “An immediate threat?”

“…No. But that doesn’t mean—”

“I’m not a lawyer, Bright,” she cut in, “but I know you can’t use self-defense to stab people unless they threaten you first. Threaten you for _real_. Physically and immediately.”

Malcolm ground his molars together. “Then what do we do? If she goes to jail, that’s not _justice_.”

“No, I know,” Dani said instantly, chewing on her lip and glancing at Ainsley. A fraction of the tension in Malcolm’s chest lessened, only to snap back into place with Dani’s next words. “I have to arrest her.”

“ _What?_ ” Malcolm burst out, loud enough to make Ainsley flinch, even though he’d _known_ this was a possibility when he called Dani. “But—”

“I know she’s your sister, but I can’t lose my job over this. And, Bright…” Something shifted in Dani’s expression, something guilty. “She’s your sister.”

Ah. So she didn’t trust him or his version of the story. Not entirely, anyway. Figured.

“I have to arrest her,” Dani repeated, like that was something Malcolm wanted to hear, “but here’s what I can do. I can reach out to some defense attorneys. Not the ones your mother found—they’re expensive, but I know other names that get more acquittals. Annoy the hell out of the NYPD. And I can…” She took a deep breath. “I can close my eyes if you wanna…make it look less like a massacre.”

Malcolm gaped at her. “You mean it?” That could get her fired just as easily, if someone found out.

If.

He’d better do a good job.

“I won’t tell,” she promised softly. “If someone from CSI figures it out on their own, I…I can’t protect you, Bright. But I won’t sell you out.”

She didn’t make him promise the same in return.

He did anyway. “If it falls back on anyone, it’ll just be me. _Thank you_ , Dani.” His feet shuffled, uncertain of which direction to take first.

It wasn’t his mind that made the decision for him. It was a few more emotions escaping from their box, strong and sudden enough that he couldn’t stop himself from throwing his arms around Dani, who stiffened for a second before her hands came up to hold him in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanna say, as someone in their third year of US law school: I have a hard time believing Ainsley has a good self-defense claim, even though I've seen that idea floating around. Self-defense in New York requires that: a) she was facing an immediate threat (not a hypothetical future one), b) her actions were necessary (aka she couldn't call the police or do literally anything but stab him), and c) her actions were proportional to the threat facing her. Tbh, I don't think ANY of that is true for her.
> 
> What she might have, however, is an "extreme emotional disturbance" defense. This is kind of like the classic "provocation" defense. It's not a complete defense - it won't get her a "not guilty" verdict - but it can mitigate; drop her down from 2nd degree to manslaughter. Here, there are only two prongs: a) that Ainsley was subjectively emotionally disturbed, and b) that her subjective emotional disturbance was objectively reasonable - from the perspective of someone in Ainsley's position.
> 
> So. Even though this fic isn't actually a legal case fic and won't actually go into Ainsley's trial or anything, I just wanted to share that because, y'know, fun facts. ;)


	2. Coming Back

Dani

She wasn’t sure why she ended up at the hospital a few days later, sitting in an uncomfortable chair with a stiff cushion that was the most lifeless shade of blue she could imagine. The room was sterile, and the blinking lights and whirring of the machine hooked up to Gil seemed more alive than he did. Dani dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands.

Ainsley had been arrested. Current charge: second degree murder. Malcolm was a wreck. Or so Dani assumed. See, Dani hadn’t actually _seen_ him since he called her asking for help at the crime scene.

It still turned Dani’s stomach in knots to think about. There was the grisly crime scene itself, for one, and Dani was pretty used to seeing just what kind of unbridled destruction one human being could unleash on another, but…seeing it in Jessica Whitley’s elegant home felt different.

And then there was the dead look in Ainsley’s eyes, interrupted by only brief sparks of panic. Dani didn’t know Ainsley well, but she’d seen her on the news. She’d respected Ainsley’s poise, her confidence, her determination to get to the truth of a story. Not to mention her courage when trapped with the Surgeon during a prison lockdown or when a killer tried to use her show to manipulate her mother. On top of all that, there was just…the way Malcolm talked about her.

You didn’t see many brothers light up with pride like that when they talked about their little sister. You just didn’t.

But the most terrifying thing about the crime scene?

Malcolm. Except for that one moment when he hugged her, his composure had been _impeccable_. Nothing like the anger he let the team see after arresting them. He hadn’t seemed angry at all; he hadn’t even seemed that scared. It was like this was just another case for him.

The thing was, she knew that wasn’t real. He was breaking inside—if he wasn’t already broken. And the fact that he was trying so hard to pretend he was fine just scared her more. It seemed like only a matter of time before that composure snapped.

(After all, he was a Whitly.)

(No—don’t think that.)

(Still. She hadn’t exactly relied on his promise that, if he got caught for crime scene tampering, he wouldn’t involve her. She wasn’t sure what he’d do, could think up plenty of reasons why he’d protect her along with plenty of reasons why he wouldn’t, and in the end, she decided to stop speculating and accept whatever consequences came her way, no matter what Malcolm Bright did.)

Sitting in the hospital room, watching Gil’s chest rise and fall with mechanical regularity, she wondered what Gil would think of what she’d done, what she’d let Malcolm do.

“Would you have done that?” she whispered, watching Gil’s unmoving eyelids. On the one hand, he’d overseen Malcolm’s arrest; on the other, she couldn’t help but wonder if Gil had given Malcolm an escape route first. It wouldn’t exactly be shocking to discover that Malcolm simply hadn’t taken it.

Dani gritted her teeth. She hadn’t asked for this! She hadn’t become a detective to work with a profiler who always insisted on being on-scene, always tried to talk to the bad guys, always had to be _involved_. And she _definitely_ hadn’t become a detective to work through all the Whitly family drama. Serial killer drama was supposed to be _outside_ the office, and it was supposed to stay there. She wouldn’t be in this position if not for Gil thinking differently.

But that was just it, wasn’t it? She wouldn’t be a detective, either, if not for Gil thinking differently.

Sighing, Dani leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, staring unblinkingly at Gil. Willing him to wake up and just…just carry a little of this, please.

Instead, the door opened and whoever was entering tripped over nothing. “Dani!” Malcolm blurted out.

She pulled her hand away from where it was hovering close to her department-issued handgun. An instinctive reaction, and one that was harder to catch the more stressed she got. And she did not want Malcolm dissecting her stress levels. “What are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to…” Malcolm trailed off, gesturing limply towards Gil, shoulders sagging.

“Yeah,” Dani said quietly. “Me too.”

Malcolm opened his mouth, then just cleared his throat, then hesitated some more, then finally came up with, “Can I…?” And pointed at the chair next to her.

At this point, why not? She nodded.

“Thanks.” His voice was a terrible impression of his real one. He sat down, folding his hands in his lap. It didn’t stop the shaking. But then he turned to look at her, and she somehow hadn’t expected his eyes to be that close, and they were so dark and blue and full of unidentified emotion that she had to look away. She couldn’t block out his voice, though. “Are you doing okay?”

 _His_ sister had gotten arrested, and he was asking _her_ if _she_ was okay? (Of course he was.) She glared over Gil’s motionless body at the wall across from them. “I’m fine.” It came out too harsh. She tried again. “He’ll be fine, too.” But that sounded just as unconvincing even to her own ears. She firmly changed the subject. “You haven’t been at the office.”

“Oh…yeah.” When she glanced at him, it was to observe that his eyes had dropped away. “Didn’t seem terribly appropriate.”

“You’re not a suspect,” she pointed out.

“Not for the Endicott case,” he muttered.

Dani felt a stab of guilt. Malcolm had apparently given the DA enough provable facts linking Endicott to his DNA planted on Eddie to make reasonable doubt seem inevitable. (Edrisa’s written statement, which she _demanded_ the DA read, hadn’t hurt his case either.) But Malcolm clearly hadn’t forgotten about his arrest, and Dani had no idea what to say. Apologizing for her own actions meant admitting the arrest had been wrong, and she couldn’t say that without incriminating Gil. Which felt so wrong, with Gil lying unconscious a few feet away, that something in her recoiled.

Easier to keep silent.

Besides, Malcolm talked enough for both of them. “Anyway,” he went on bleakly, “the NYPD would be stupid not to keep me on a list somewhere, at this point.”

Guilt twisted deep in her stomach. “You really think that?”

Suddenly, his eyes were on hers again, with that uncanny way he had of seeming to stare into her soul. “Don’t you?”

She froze. Maybe it was just a general comment. Or maybe he was reminding her that she’d been the one to cuff him. Was there any possible way to respond without bringing up his arrest—and her part in it? “I don’t…um.” She had to stop looking at his eyes. She stared at the toes of her boots instead, dark against the white hospital floor. “The department would be stupid to put you on a list. After how many serial killers you’ve brought in?”

“That’s like saying my father shouldn’t be arrested because of how many lives he saved,” Malcolm countered softly. “If a person is broken, it doesn’t matter if they’ve done some good things in the past.”

There were…so many things she wanted to point out now. Like the fact that brokenness in the Surgeon ( _if_ he was broken; she wasn’t sure she how she’d classify whatever was wrong with Martin Whitly) was _completely different_ than whatever brokenness might possibly be in Malcolm. And the fact that Malcolm wasn’t done doing good things. And mostly the fact that she didn’t think Malcolm was broken at all. It was the world that was broken, and Malcolm—with his awful sleep schedule and his restraints attached to his bed and his…everything else—was just trying to cope. But she didn’t know how to even _start_ saying any of that, so she didn’t say anything.

“Besides,” Malcolm said, voice low, and she made the mistake of glancing up to see that he was still staring at her. “I didn’t ask what the department thinks. I asked what _you_ think. Do you…” He took a deep breath, like he was bracing himself, and clenched his trembling hand. “Do you think I should come back?”

Her first defensive thought was that he was putting her on the spot on purpose. He wanted to pin her down so he could use her words against her later. That was what so many of the men she’d known in her life did, after all.

But she knew better. This was Malcolm; the man didn’t have an ounce of subterfuge in his whole body. He genuinely wanted her opinion, knowing how easy it would be for her to tell him to stay away; take a break; go on Rich People Vacation again. How easy it would be for her to tell him that she didn’t want him around.

_We’re friends?_

He’d sounded so hopeful.

_I’m out of practice with friends._

He’d sounded so awed. Overwhelmed. All too aware of the weight of the word, of how easily such a precious thing could break.

The trust he was putting in her now, with this one, painfully honest question…it was making her feel the same way.

“Dani?” He looked so…resigned. Like he knew her silence could only mean one thing.

Sitting up straighter, she shook her head and spoke before she could give herself the chance to hesitate, to second-guess, to keep her defenses up. “I think you should come back. To the office, I mean.”

For a split second, his eyes lit up—childlike. Then his eyebrows drew closer together. He was studying her. Making sure she really meant it.

And Dani didn’t know how to convince him. She was feeling too many things at once and she could only imagine how easy it would be for him to misread it. So she did the only thing she could think of: she reached out and grabbed his hand. The trembling one.

“Malcolm,” she said, and waited until his eyes locked onto hers, this time refusing to look away despite the terrifying intensity in his gaze. “I want you to come back.”


	3. Night Terror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, it's been a hot minute since I've posted anything here but I promise I haven't forgotten this fic, I just got *insanely* distracted with another story. Anyway, hi!

Malcolm had been pushing himself harder than he should recently. Ha—that was a lie. He’d been pushing himself harder than he should for _years_. But he didn’t have much of a choice, since the alternative was wallowing in…everything.

Gil had woken up, yeah. But he wasn’t back to his old self. He seemed…shaken, somehow. Older, even. And sometimes he looked at Malcolm and it was like he looked right through him. Like he was seeing someone else.

Then there was Ainsley. Arrested. Bail was literally millions of dollars, more than even Jessica could afford. Malcolm couldn’t even begin to figure out how to feel about that.

But Dani. Dani had said he should come back to the office, so he was trying. He really was. He needed to prove—to himself, to _everyone_ —that there were still people he could help.

(If he couldn’t help his own sister, what _good_ was he? But Ainsley was beyond help.)

Their new case was grisly and complicated enough to keep Malcolm up all night, trying and failing to get any dots to connect. A gruesome double murder of identical twins at a spotless crime scene in the kitchen of an abandoned apartment. Well, spotless except for the notes scratched into countless pads of paper, comparing how the two twins responded to various torture methods over the course of approximately ten hours, if the notes were accurate.

Unless Malcolm was severely mistaken, the whole thing looked like…an experiment?

It was fascinating, it really was. Obviously, their killer was intelligent. Educated. Almost definitely from a scientific field. And some of the results recorded in the notepads were…well. Interesting. Maybe even…useful? Like, it was stuff you could publish in a scientific paper—if not for the countless ethical violations.

It wasn’t the first time dubious methods obtained useful results. The data from Nazi medical experiments in concentration camps were just one of many examples. Dr. Whitly would be the first to say that data was data no matter where it came from.

And Malcolm? Malcolm was intrigued despite himself. And he was disgusted by his own curiosity.

So, yeah, between all that and the fact that he was _failing_ at locating the killer, failing at helping secure justice for these victims and failing at preventing new victims from popping up, not to mention failing at doing literally anything to help his sister…well, Malcolm would say he wasn’t exactly _at peace_ with himself these days.

The solution, obviously, was to throw himself harder into his work. Even if he was hitting nothing but dead ends.

Tonight, for example, he was running on who knew how many minutes of sleep, subsisting on a measly packet of sun chips from the vending machine, rubbing his eyes when the light of his computer screen burned his retinas compared to the darkness of the rest of the office. As far as he knew, everyone else had gone home for the day. Made it harder to convince himself that all the dark shadows in all the corners were empty.

(He wasn’t scared. He was too tired to be scared.)

He rubbed his eyes again and finally gave up, shutting off his computer. It was too bright. He got up too fast, and the room kind of swooped around him for a second before he regained his equilibrium. Shuffling into the conference room instead, he clipped the doorframe with his elbow when his depth perception blinked out for a second, but it was fine. No one was there to see it.

He flicked on the light in the conference room and instantly regretted it. Why were these bulbs so _bright?_ How hard would it be to get them at a lower setting? Or, like, a dimmer switch. That was a great idea. Couldn’t be that expensive, could it? And it would seriously increase office productivity. For Malcolm, at least.

Sinking into the nearest chair, Malcolm squinted in the brightness as he studied the crime scene photos as if he hadn’t stared at them for about a hundred hours already, trying to find anything new, _anything_.

It all started blurring together. He blinked, forcing the images to clear.

After about twenty seconds, they were blurred again.

Malcolm’s dry eyes ached. He closed them, meaning to blink again, but his eyes stayed shut. He didn’t make a conscious choice to lower his head onto his shoulder; it just happened.

Within seconds, he was out.

~

He saw his dad’s face. That slow, warm smile that stretched his mouth, made his cheeks plump up, sharpened the crow’s feet around his eyes. Dad looked pleased. Surprised. Triumphant.

“Come here, my boy,” he whispered in his too-loud whisper. He was terrible at being quiet. “Look at this.”

His hand settled on Malcolm’s shoulders, heavy. Malcolm was dragged across a clean kitchen, pushed forward and positioned so he could see the two bodies stretched out on the counter. Identical except for their wounds and distortions.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Dad was not-whispering in his ear. “What the human body can endure?”

Malcolm swallowed thickly, and blinked hard, and when he opened his eyes again, the bodies were still identical but the _faces—_

It was his own face staring up at him. And the body next to it wore Ainsley’s face.

“What did you do?” Malcolm gasped.

“Calm down, my boy, it’s just an experiment.” Dad squeezed the back of Malcolm’s neck. “See? What didn’t work on you worked on Ainsley. Just look at her.” He forced Malcolm to lean in close over Ainsley’s body, so close, too close. His voice softened. “My girl.”

No, no, no no no—

Ainsley’s dead blue eyes snapped open.

Malcolm jerked back, flailing. He didn’t fall against his dad like he was expecting; instead, he hit something smaller and softer.

“Malcolm!”

Someone was shaking him. Hard. Malcolm lashed out at his attacker, terror rising in his lungs as his attacker deftly grabbed his wrist and pinned it behind him, twisting just enough that every movement sent sparks of pain shooting through his arm. He froze, body stretched out on a chilled floor as his heart beat out of control.

“Shh, shh, _shh_.” The voice in his ear was gentle and firm at the same time. “Breathe. You’re safe, you’re safe.”

Malcolm’s eyes were open but he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. Light and shadows and hard surfaces. Where, where, where—

“Shh, you’re okay.” The other hand not holding his wrist pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Malcolm, it’s me.”

Her face swam into focus. “Dani,” he breathed.

“With me?” she asked, searching his gaze.

“Where—where—what—”

“You’re at the office,” she explained immediately, voice low and soothing. “You were in the conference room. You fell asleep. I was across the hall in the evidence room filling out a report. I heard you scream, so I came to find you. I think you had a nightmare.”

Nightmare. _Ha_. Like such a mundane word was enough to capture the fear still holding him in its clutches.

Wait. _Office?_ New panic surged through him and he struggled to get away from her, twisting until he was half-upright. “Who—who—did anyone—”

“Shh!” She stopped twisting his wrist but gripped his shoulders, holding him still. “Calm down. Talk to me, Bright. What are you so worried about?”

He ignored her, craning his neck to scan the room, desperate to see who else had witnessed this. Cops, detectives, anyone who’d never work with him again if they knew he was so pathetic. It had taken _months_ for the whispers to die down after his last night terror at the office. And he needed this job, needed to be able to focus, couldn’t stand to be the center of their scrutiny when he already had so much to deal with—

“Just me,” Dani was saying. “It’s just me.”

Finally, her words synced up with what his eyes were telling him. The room was empty. It was just them, tangled together on the floor.

His face heated up at the realization of how close they were, of how she was literally pinning him down. He forced his breathing to level out. “Sorry,” he managed.

“What for?” Her voice was casual. “You cool now?”

“Yeah, I’m…” He swallowed. “Cool.”

“Okay. I’m letting you up now.” Releasing him, she shifted until her weight was no longer against him.

Malcolm forced himself to sit up slowly. He didn’t need to bolt. There was no danger. It was just Dani, looking at him with something in her eyes that he was afraid to dissect. He hung his head. “Sorry,” he repeated.

She leaned back but didn’t get up, instead just crossing her legs so she could keep sitting next to him. “Nothing to be sorry about. I’m just glad you’re okay.” Then she hesitated, biting her lip. “That, uh…that nightmare seemed pretty intense, though.”

“Night terror,” he corrected despite himself. Always a stickler for accuracy.

“Right, that.” She tilted her head. Hair hung in front of her eyes. She didn’t come up with anything else to say. Didn’t ask any more questions.

He thought maybe he was grateful. If there was one person who knew how to sit with someone in silence, it was Dani.

Still, he had to know. He cleared his throat. “You, uh…you gonna tell me to get off this case until I get some rest, then?”

She glanced up. “What?”

“That’s what Gil would say.” Malcolm fidgeted with the hem of his sleeve. “Probably.” Send him home, tell him to not come back until he’d gotten eight hours of sleep. Maybe even eight _consecutive_ hours.

“Yeah,” Dani agreed simply. “Well, he worries about you.”

“He shouldn’t, though.”

She raised her eyebrows. “He should.”

Malcolm figured that wasn’t an argument he was going to win, so he just shrugged.

Dani shrugged back, like that counted as a conversation. The silence was back, but Malcolm was still grateful for it. It gave him the chance to really center himself in reality, to push back the lingering threads of the night terror still threatening to choke away his breath.

Then she moved slightly, twisting her fingers together and taking a deep breath like she wanted to say something. Malcolm waited patiently. Or maybe not so patiently.

What she finally said was not what he’d been expecting. “I told you to come back to the office.”

He frowned. “Yeah…?”

She wet her lips. “I didn’t mean to pressure you.”

Oh. “You didn’t,” he said quickly, firmly. “This, uh…” He gestured awkwardly at himself. “This would’ve happened anyway.” The only difference was that maybe it would’ve happened at his apartment instead of here at the office, but he found himself realizing that he didn’t care so much. Not as much as he should. Having a night terror at the office _should_ be humiliating. And it still would be, definitely, if there’d been anyone else here. Even Gil, who would’ve worried too much and felt guilty, like Malcolm’s spiraling mental health was somehow his fault.

Dani, though. She was calm. Sympathetic, but not freaking out. Apparently she’d felt at least a bit guilty, or else she wouldn’t have said anything about pressuring him, but she seemed to take him at his word that his night terror was not her fault. Letting him speak for himself. If he’d thought about it, he would’ve expected nothing less.

Staring at her, he felt something warm rising in his chest. On the surface, it was a surprise to realize he didn’t mind her seeing him like this. Deeper down, though, it was not. Trusting her felt familiar. Like coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's true that Malcolm here doesn't choose to let Dani see the night terror, so in that case it kinda feels like cheating, but I didn't want to rehash him choosing to let her put him in cuffs since we've already seen that; instead, I wanted to dive into him realizing that he trusts her to see the aftermath of his night terrors even if he didn't have much of a choice. I hope that works!


End file.
